Building on a note I sent to the Art of Hosting list this morning, and thinking about some of the calls to work across generations this coming year…

Otto Scharmer sent along an email this week:

I just returned from some coaching and consulting work. i am struck by the similarity of experience that todays leaders face across companies, industries and even across sectors. as a leader today, you find yourself in NO-WHERE-LAND. on the one side you have all the tools that you learned from consultants, business schools and other sources of conventional management wisdom. on the other side you have a huge leadership challenge that you currently face. and in between these two things, there is a HUGE GAP. a NOWHERE-LAND. and you find yourself right in the middle of that NOWHERE-ZONE. alone.

the only thing that you can rely on in situations like this is your self-knowing. the deepening of your SELF-knowing. the deepening of your awareness. THAT is, what presencing is all about. to provide a method to collectively CREATE from that NOWHERE-ZONE.

but that technology does not work if you use it with a mindset that belongs to the old toolkit (”problemsolving”). it requires a new mindset. a mindset that is acutely aware of that NOWHERE-ZONE right in front of us, right within us. the awareness of that GAP right NOW right HERE provides a crack where the window to an heightened awareness opens up. without that window open, we cannot cross the distance from self to Self–from no-where to now-here.

This fincancial crisis in the USA, which will soon overtake us all, is both It seems to me that two things have to happen if we are to really shift into something else, even into the conditions that make Bernaerd’s thinking possible. First the old world has to pass away and old thinking has to die as well. Giving $700 billion dollars to old thinkers delays this passing away I think, even while it might be necessary at some level to keep SOMETHING stable. But this bailout was not done with awareness. Yesterday I read in Forbes that a Treasury Department spokesperson said they just picked “a really large number.” That kind of “make it up on the spot” thinking has to die away.

The second thing that needs to happen is that space needs to open up for new thinking, and this is the role of young people and those of us that are a little older who can help it to happen. A new FORM of leadership and organization is needed if a shift to sustainability on a global scale is to take place. This might be the best opportunity in the last generation for that to truly happen, but it won’t happen if we give in to those who say “don’t panic, we’ll get everything fixed up in a a few months/years.”

I’m not panicking nor am I suggesting panic, but I’m also not expecting the old world to die so easily. It’s painful to leave the world you believe in. And the current generation of leadership that got us into this mess, nhas a sense of generational entitlement that is hard to shake. I think that Now more than ever, we need the world to be run by 20 year olds.

And if that prospect frightens you, then take a look at what is happening to your retirement savings (if you have any), or your mortgage (if you have one), or watch what happens to your bank next week (if you live in the United States) and see which scenario is more scary. Doing what we can to assist the generational shift in leadership is an imperative.for our world, and it has to happen before this current generation of emerging leaders is bought in to the old way of doing things. I think the role of Elders now is not to sit on the sidelines and provide well meaning advice. It is to actively work with youth to accelerate their own wisdom and their moving into positions of real power and responsibility, the positions that are about designing this new world.

It’s worth noting that in Canada at the moment there is a very tightly contested election going on between various representatives of the old world order mixed in with some very radically new thinking even in the traditional parties. WHile I think this is maybe not the time for half way measures, it is surely not the time for the status quo.)

I think that is what it will take, and I think that is work we can do in all the communities and organizations where we are working. Where are the new leaders? Who are the people in your organization or community who need to be leading now? If they are on the sidelines, what are you doing to help them get front and centre?

The current generation just spent i’s own inhereitance and that of several future generations as well. We need to save it, and us, from anymore foolishness.

Let’s roll.

That $700 billion bailout south of the border?

“It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.”

Wow indeed.

I’m putting together a presentation (including some slides) on community engagement and leadership for a gathering of First Nations leaders next month.  In the spirit of seeking the wisdom of the blogosphere, I’m wondering if any of you have some thoughts or pearls of wisdom that I could share with this group of people.  Here is the proposal that I’m working on:

We’ve moved on.

In the last century, government talked to citizens, and if they were feeling particularly charitable, they allowed citizens to say something back. This was called “consultation” and it had it’s origins in the ancient European model of the ruler seeking advice from advisors before making a decision.

That model has unravelled. We have moved from consultation to citizen and community engagement as we recognize that more and more, people need to be actively involved in the decisions that affect their communities. And now we are finding that the shift continues.

What if we moved from community engagement to just community? What if in First Nations communities we recovered that capacity for community members to work together to design and co-own the direction of their Nations?

It’s possible and it is happening all over the world, in indigenous communities on every continent as people realize that the responsibility for the direction of their communities rests with them.

People own what they design. Community engagement is now about community members designing, deciding and implementing the shifts that are needed in their communities. The days of someone else doing it for us are over.

This shift presents challenges and opportunities for leadership. Old models of top-down, command and control leadership are changing and new models of collaborative leadership and community building are rising to the fore. Leveraging the power of networks and self-organizing groups – even and especially in small communities – is the way forward.

What is community engagement now? What else could leadership be?

So my wise friends…thoughts?

I’ve been publishing my recent finds and current reading over on the sidebar, which you won’t have seen if you read this blog with a newsreader.   Here is the link to the RSS feed for the links.   There is some interesting stuff there, things which may turn up later as blog posts, or just caught my attention.

Carry on.

With respect to the patronizing incident that took place yesterday during our federal election campaign, whereby a Conservative Ministerial aide said to a man from Barriere Lake:  “If you behave, and you’re sober, and there’s no problems, and if you don’t do a sit-down and whatever, I don’t care. One of them showed up the other day and was drinking,”

The woman who uttered these remarks, Darlene Lannigan, I think will sit down later this week with some local First Nation folks to sort it out, but I thought it was notable that other members of the Minister’s staff apologized on her behalf, rather than her doing it.   And anyway, the apology was couched in a condition:  “We also understand these comments were made in a difficult context. That is regrettable. The good news is that the parties have committed to meet later this week, in a spirit of collaboration.”

So hooray that they are getting together.  It will help them understand how to behave in “difficult contexts,” like when you are talking to someone who’s skin colour is different from yours.

But this isn’t at all unusual.  There is a broad swath of Canadian society, much of it upper crust, that has never met anyone of First Nations ancestry let alone thought about their unconsciously held stereotypes about Aboriginal people.  Regardless of the level of alcoholism in Aboriginal communities (and it varies, don’t you know), their opinions are not formed by statistics, they are formed by prejudice.  And prejudice has no place in the public service, whether you are a political aide or a public servant.

And while alcoholism IS an issue, it is a rare occasion to see anyone show up at a meeting, rally or protest drunk.  In the 20 years I have been working in the Aboriginal community in this country, I have, only once, been to a meeting where alcohol was served, and that was an economic development conference where NKMIP winery from the Osoyoos Indian Band provided one bottle of wine per table of six people. I have been to plenty of gatherings with non-Aboriginal Canadians of all political stripes in which an open bar, or a cash bar even, is the highlight of the night. So what is the truth here?  What are we really supposed to think when someone of Darlene Lannigan’s stature makes rules about behaviour and drinking for an Algonquin man that I bet she has never made for non-Aboriginal people?

My guess is that it’s not really an apology that Darlene Lannigan needs, but a thorough re-education about alcohol and it could probably begin snd end with her own abstinence, and those of her cronies and friends. And then at Church on Sunday, she can remember the teaching about casting the first stone and all that.